Choosing from the repertoire of contention: Evidence from student protests in Latin America

Pavlic, Rodolfo Disi

doi:10.1590/1678-987320287611

Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Brasil

Revista de Sociologia e Política

Español English

Brasil

Español English

sumário « anterior atual seguinte »

Sumário

Original Articles • Rev. Sociol. Polit. 28 (76) • 2020 • https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-987320287611 copy

Choosing from the repertoire of contention: Evidence from student protests in Latin America

Eligiendo del repertorio de contención: Evidencia de protestas estudiantiles en América Latina

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

Activists mobilize using various protest strategies to advance their demands but few studies analyze protest events to explain their choice of peaceful, disruptive, and violent methods. This paper argues that when movements have few supporters and allies - major resources for mobilization - they privilege violent tactics. Conversely, when mobilizations have more participants and partners, protests are more likely to use peaceful or disruptive strategies.

Materials and methods:

The paper uses a mixed methods research design. From a quantitative perspective, it uses a dataset of 4,700 college student protests in Latin America to test the theoretical claims with logistic regressions. A case study of protest tactics and resources during the December 2014-January 2015 youth protests in Lima, Peru is used to illustrate how human resources shape the repertoire of contention. This qualitative section uses evidence from interviews as well as secondary data.

Results:

The results of the regression analyses partially support the theory, showing that more participants tend to make protests more peaceful and disruptive and less violent. The effect of certain allies, however, goes against theoretical expectations. As the case study shows, after a relatively violent first march, young activists in Lima organized themselves on a territorial basis, which both decreased the influence of political parties in the movement and increased the number of activists and actors involved, making subsequent demonstrations less violent. However, the case study also shows that the presence of specific political actors is inherently associated with more violent strategies.

Discussion:

This paper shows how the presence of allies and the number of demonstrators, as major resources available to social movements, shape the choice of tactics used in protest events. While more participants and the presence of allies makes events more contained, the evidence also suggests that both very large numbers of participants and the addition of disparate actors into a mobilization may promote violence.

KEYWORDS:
Protest events; tactics; nonviolent movements; violent protests; repertoire of contention

Strategy	N	%	Type	N	%
March	1,650	34.98	Peaceful	3,392	71.91
Demonstration	1,275	27.03
Rally	204	4.32
Public statement	418	8.86
Assembly	287	6.08
Cultural acts	225	4.77
Petition	146	3.10
Commemoration	207	4.39
Strike	267	5.66	Disruptive	1,749	37.08
Sit-in (school)	636	13.48
Sit-in (elsewhere)	168	3.56
Roadblock	702	14.88
Interruption of public activity	117	2.48
Funa	51	1.08
Self-destructive acts	137	2.90	Violent	528	11.19
Attacks on public property	100	2.12
Attacks on private property	89	1.89
Weapons	83	1.76
Attacks on security forces	174	3.69
Attacks on bystanders	15	0.32
Attacks on other protesters	73	1.55
Number of observations: 4.717

	Logistic Models (I)			Multilevel Logistic Models (II)
	Peaceful	Disruptive	Violent	Peaceful	Disruptive	Violent
Size (reference: handful)
10-49	1.524	7.612^* * p < 0.01,	0.354^* * p < 0.01,	1.527	8.142^* * p < 0.01,	0.323^* * p < 0.01,
	(0.398)	(2.796)	(0.0859)	(0.612)	(3.736)	(0.119)
50-100	4.791^* * p < 0.01,	21.85^* * p < 0.01,	0.144^* * p < 0.01,	4.924^* * p < 0.01,	23.20^* * p < 0.01,	0.133^* * p < 0.01,
	(1.335)	(8.473)	(0.0439)	(2.112)	(10.81)	(0.0437)
Hundreds	7.426^* * p < 0.01,	20.16^* * p < 0.01,	0.250^* * p < 0.01,	7.959^* * p < 0.01,	22.28^* * p < 0.01,	0.271^* * p < 0.01,
	(1.905)	(7.451)	(0.0612)	(3.454)	(11.30)	(0.0823)
Thousands	20.47^* * p < 0.01,	21.54^* * p < 0.01,	0.285^* * p < 0.01,	24.61^* * p < 0.01,	24.28^* * p < 0.01,	0.324^* * p < 0.01,
	(5.991)	(8.226)	(0.0749)	(12.31)	(12.87)	(0.102)
Tens of Thousands	38.95^* * p < 0.01,	54.08^* * p < 0.01,	0.803	42.50^* * p < 0.01,	61.36^* * p < 0.01,	0.921
	(14.20)	(21.18)	(0.227)	(26.05)	(35.49)	(0.347)
Not enough information	4.402^* * p < 0.01,	17.52^* * p < 0.01,	0.229^* * p < 0.01,	4.593^* * p < 0.01,	19.89^* * p < 0.01,	0.217^* * p < 0.01,
	(1.090)	(6.430)	(0.0535)	(2.120)	(8.487)	(0.0595)
Additional Actors
None	0.551^* * p < 0.01,	1.135	0.876	0.575^* * p < 0.01,	1.203	0.899
	(0.0957)	(0.151)	(0.147)	(0.110)	(0.205)	(0.212)
Party members	1.439^* * p < 0.1.	0.840	0.893	1.517^ p < 0.05,	0.837	1.051
	(0.296)	(0.110)	(0.151)	(0.298)	(0.123)	(0.262)
High school students	1.476	1.349^* * p < 0.1.	1.849^* * p < 0.01,	1.442^* * p < 0.1.	1.290	1.619
	(0.379)	(0.218)	(0.347)	(0.293)	(0.231)	(0.572)
Faculty	0.858	0.909	0.512^* * p < 0.01,	0.880	0.943	0.517^* * p < 0.01,
	(0.162)	(0.124)	(0.109)	(0.119)	(0.192)	(0.126)
Teachers	2.035^ p < 0.05,	1.264	0.634^ p < 0.05,	2.256^* * p < 0.01,	1.193	0.663^ p < 0.05,
	(0.586)	(0.184)	(0.141)	(0.619)	(0.279)	(0.115)
Labor	1.080	0.958	0.750^* * p < 0.1.	1.137	0.978	0.783
	(0.182)	(0.112)	(0.115)	(0.243)	(0.138)	(0.195)
Peasants	0.563^ p < 0.05,	0.929	0.599^* * p < 0.1.	0.523^ p < 0.05,	0.940	0.529^ p < 0.05,
	(0.163)	(0.165)	(0.167)	(0.136)	(0.161)	(0.170)
Indigenous and Afrodescendant people	1.899^* * p < 0.1.	1.124	1.053	1.837^ p < 0.05,	1.125	0.990
	(0.719)	(0.252)	(0.315)	(0.493)	(0.234)	(0.190)
Targets
Government	1.567^* * p < 0.01,	1.491^* * p < 0.01,	0.893	1.572^* * p < 0.01,	1.446^* * p < 0.01,	0.858
	(0.201)	(0.168)	(0.115)	(0.226)	(0.161)	(0.108)
Colleges	0.790^* * p < 0.1.	2.848^* * p < 0.01,	0.743^ p < 0.05,	0.770^ p < 0.05,	2.907^* * p < 0.01,	0.809
	(0.103)	(0.338)	(0.110)	(0.102)	(0.400)	(0.165)
Demands
Political	1.259	0.758^ p < 0.05,	0.889	1.313	0.790	0.781
	(0.213)	(0.0920)	(0.129)	(0.242)	(0.120)	(0.124)
Postmaterialist	2.426^ p < 0.05,	0.560^* * p < 0.01,	0.577^* * p < 0.1.	2.552	0.536^ p < 0.05,	0.564^* * p < 0.1.
	(0.890)	(0.122)	(0.180)	(1.547)	(0.162)	(0.174)
Costs	1.145	0.900	0.757^* * p < 0.1.	1.240	0.914	0.743^* * p < 0.1.
	(0.161)	(0.104)	(0.120)	(0.167)	(0.139)	(0.129)
Support	1.171	1.081	1.157	1.230	1.023	1.054
	(0.207)	(0.162)	(0.245)	(0.195)	(0.194)	(0.240)
Autonomy	1.158	1.631^* * p < 0.01,	1.341^* * p < 0.1.	1.256	1.687^* * p < 0.1.	1.145
	(0.212)	(0.278)	(0.238)	(0.235)	(0.494)	(0.197)
Other tactics
Peaceful		0.0295^* * p < 0.01,	0.174^* * p < 0.01,		0.0271^* * p < 0.01,	0.178^* * p < 0.01,
		(0.00332)	(0.0319)		(0.00612)	(0.0600)
Disruptive	0.0277^* * p < 0.01,		0.388^* * p < 0.01,	0.0240^* * p < 0.01,		0.394^* * p < 0.01,
	(0.00329)		(0.0723)	(0.00609)		(0.116)
Violent	0.161^* * p < 0.01,	0.394^* * p < 0.01,		0.152^* * p < 0.01,	0.371^* * p < 0.01,
	(0.0277)	(0.0717)		(0.0440)	(0.112)
Capital City	1.338^* * p < 0.01,	0.973	0.852	1.363^* * p < 0.01,	0.871	1.051
	(0.134)	(0.0815)	(0.0847)	(0.164)	(0.116)	(0.150)
Coder (reference: Coder 1)
Coder 2	0.333^* * p < 0.01,	0.774^ p < 0.05,	5.499^* * p < 0.01,	0.329^* * p < 0.01,	0.787^* * p < 0.1.	3.814^* * p < 0.01,
	(0.0537)	(0.0955)	(1.763)	(0.0361)	(0.109)	(0.750)
Coder 3	0.336^* * p < 0.01,	1.433^ p < 0.05,	6.005^* * p < 0.01,	0.316^* * p < 0.01,	1.444	3.878^* * p < 0.01,
	(0.0618)	(0.205)	(2.013)	(0.0494)	(0.363)	(1.140)
Constant	8.523^* * p < 0.01,	0.259^* * p < 0.01,	0.596	8.570^* * p < 0.01,	0.246^* * p < 0.01,	0.547
	(2.868)	(0.106)	(0.257)	(4.446)	(0.113)	(0.234)
Observations	4.717	4.717	4.717	4.717	4.717	4.717
Number of country-years (random intercepts)				227	227	227
Number of countries (random intercepts)				18	18	18

Additional actors		Tactic Type
		Peaceful	Disruptive	Violent
Students only	No	0.901^* * p < 0.01,	Nonsignificant	Nonsignificant
		(0.00919)
	Yes	0.834^* * p < 0.01,
		(0.0156)
Party Members	No	0.867^* * p < 0.01,	Nonsignificant	Nonsignificant
		(0.00795)
	Yes	0.904^* * p < 0.01,
		(0.0165)
High school students	No	Nonsignificant	0.344^* * p < 0.01,	0.0755^* * p < 0.01,
			(0.00937)	(0.00507)
	Yes		0.415^* * p < 0.01,	0.131^* * p < 0.01,
			(0.0373)	(0.0206)
College faculty	No	Nonsignificant	Nonsignificant	0.0854^* * p < 0.01,
				(0.00557)
	Yes			0.0456^* * p < 0.01,
				(0.00906)
Teachers	No	0.868^* * p < 0.01,	Nonsignificant	0.0812^* * p < 0.01,
		(0.00764)		(0.00530)
	Yes	0.930^* * p < 0.01,		0.0531^* * p < 0.01,
		(0.0179)		(0.0111)
Labor	No	Nonsignificant	Nonsignificant	0.0847^* * p < 0.01,
				(0.00603)
	Yes			0.0649^* * p < 0.01,
				(0.00831)
Peasants	No	0.879^* * p < 0.01,	Nonsignificant	0.0811^* * p < 0.01,
		(0.00728)		(0.00538)
	Yes	0.803^* * p < 0.01,		0.0502^* * p < 0.01,
		(0.0432)		(0.0130)
Indigenous and Afro-descendant people	No	0.872^* * p < 0.01,	Nonsignificant	Nonsignificant
Indigenous and Afro-descendant people		(0.00721)
	Yes	0.928^* * p < 0.01,
		(0.0251)
Observations		4.717	4.717	4.717

Universidade Federal do Paraná Rua General Carneiro, 460 - sala 904, 80060-150 Curitiba PR - Brasil, Tel./Fax: (55 41) 3360-5320 - Curitiba - PR - Brazil
E-mail: editoriarsp@gmail.com

Acompanhe os números deste periódico no seu leitor de RSS

[1] Rodolfo Disi Pavlic (rdisi@uct.cl) holds a Ph.D. in Government from UT Austin and is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Political Science at UCT.